Arachnophobia
by LordoftheJynx
Summary: The Spinarak are crawling in Goldenrod City...and they are taking the children with them


**Prologue: Legs**

"And so the Bug Master Kyle has ventured into the deep forests of Nagooshama where he expects to conquer the toughest baddest bugs in all the world!"

Two small toddlers fashioning large straw hats and tiny shorts ambled along the thick grasses of the National Park in Goldenrod City. The bigger one named Kyle was in front and held a large bug catching net in one hand and a red and white pokeball in the other. He sneaked along the jade path with his eyes darting left and right, searching for bug pokemon to capture. The boy behind him, Kellan, looked exactly the same except for the fact that he was considerably shorter. He trudged along sheepishly holding a shaking camcorder as they walked, hoping to make their little nighttime stroll into a famous movie. Kyle's Metapod had recently evolved into a powerful insect pokemon known as Butterfree, and he felt invincible; able to conquer any bug pokemon that came across his path.

It was well into the night, and the two brothers were alone. They were inseparable, united by the lust for adventure and bug pokemon. They were young, eight and six respectively, but they were feared among the Goldenrod junior trainers as formidable opponents. They trained at the National Park. But the best pokemon only came out at night. Despite about fifty "But Mom!!!"s, the boys were strictly forbidden from going to the park at night. Even if they were allowed, the park was closed at night.

However, no Mommy or silly rule was about to get in the way of Bug Master Kyle and his dorky sidekick Kellan! They had snuck out of their house after their mother took her night-night pills, and crawled through a hole in the park fence. Now awesome pokemon battles awaited.

"Kyle, I'm tired! Can we do this tomorrow?" Kellan pleaded sheepishly, nearly dropping the camera as he stumbled.

"No, Kellan! I keep telling you, the big baddies only come out at night, and it's our job as Super Bug Masters to destroy them! Now as I was saying…_after a hundred hours of searching, Bug Master Kyle has yet to find a big bug to swat. However, he has something up his sl-sleeeeve_," Kyle responded with a loud yawn at the end. Shaking his head to stay awake, he tossed his pokeball to the ground to summon Crushizard, his monstrous Butterfree.

"_Free…_"

The butterfly pokemon came out sprawled on the floor dead asleep. Its wings were crumpled up as a blanket and its antennas drooped as it softly snored. Kellan giggled while Kyle screamed, "Wake up, Crushizard!" Mumbling incoherently, Crushizard struggled up to his tiny blue feet and turned around to scowl at Kyle.

"Thar we go! Now, Crushizard will bring the scary monsters to us! Sweet Scent!"

Grumbling again, Crushizard half-heartedly flapped its partially crumpled wings. A delightfully syrupy aroma emitted into the air and hovered around them. The pokemon promptly returned to sleep.

"No, Crushizard! The monsters gonna come soon!"

Kellan snickered again as Kyle nudged and kicked his obstinate pokemon into moving. He loved his silly brother. He focused the camera on the orange mist that was the sweet scent until he heard a rustling in the grass ahead. Crushizard woke with a snap and Kyle turned to face the rustling, quite pale. The Butterfree extended his wings out fully and fluttered in the air, ready to ram into whatever was coming at them. Kyle tried to mask his panic from his brother, but wasn't too good at it.

"A-and s-so B-b-ug Master Kyle a-awaits t-the c-coming…" he said in a rising high-pitched voice until it was nothing but a squeak. The rustling in the high grass grew steadily louder, and Kellan too found himself stepping backwards, the camera shaking a lot more than before. A small creature leaped out of the grass, and the two boys screamed like two girls while the nimble Butterfree promptly rammed the bug in mid-air. The boys cautiously stepped forward to see what the creature was; in the dim light of the moon, they noticed it was orange and had mushrooms on its back. It must have just been a puny Paras.

Crushizard smirked smugly to himself and began to kick the Paras in its sides until it got up again, groaning.

"And so Bug Master Kyle has conquered the legendary Vesuvius, who may look small, but contains enough poison to destroy an entire…"

"Oh be quiet Kyle, it was just a wittle Paras!" Kellan snapped, turning off the camera.

"Kellan! I'm your big brother and I'm telling you to turn that camera back on! We're doing so good!"

"No we're not!"

While the two brothers bickered, the Paras and the Butterfree spoke in their own dialect, the Paras covered in thick terror sweat and Crushizard growing increasingly concerned. Nodding, the Butterfree let the Paras continue running and began to fly away itself, to the shock of Kyle.

"CRUSHIZARD! DON'T LEAVE ME!" Kyle sped off in his pokemon's wake, leaving his own brother behind.

"Kyle!!!"

Kellan joined the chase, running haphazardly through the grass, and tripping on a rock. He fell straight on his nose and crushed the camcorder under the weight of his chest. He placed his pudgy hand over his nostrils and his mouth, both which were bleeding. His brother was completely out of sight, he could no longer hear him chasing after Crushizard. The little boy looked down at the smashed camcorder in sorrow; Kyle was going to kill him. Tears began to well up in the corners of his eyes; he was bleeding and all there hard work in making a great movie had gone to waste. He sat alone sobbing in the dark, clutching his bleeding face and wiping his hand clean on the soil every minute or so. His brother would come back soon, he knew it.

He never noticed how cold it was, especially when your shorts didn't even make it half-way down your thighs. The dark was nothing to him normally, but the shroud of night combined with loneliness and an eerie silence just had a way of striking fear into a young boy's heart. Kellan wrapped his arms around his knees tightly, shivering and counting backwards from ten. His brother always told him that if he was scared, he should count backwards from ten.

"F-four…th-three…tw-two…one…"

The fear had not vanished, nor diminished. In fact, it was only growing. Kellan's focus suddenly turned to his mouth where a thin line of blood encircled his front tooth that was a bit looser than before. His nose had reduced to a dull throbbing, though the flow of blood was only getting worse. He wiped his hand on the soil again, but it collected more than dirt.

His hand felt oddly sticky. He lifted them up to the moonlight to see a thin film of white goo on his hands. Confusion struck him momentarily. He began to stop sobbing and listened carefully. There was a scurrying. He heard a faint scratching sound, moving through the soil around him. Then, he heard a squelch. Something thudded against his side; he looked down to see it. Kellan's eyes grew wide; it was the white substance again. It looked ominously familiar; gulping, he scooped the thing from his side and held it up to the moonlight once more. It was thicker than before, but as he peered more closely, the light dimmed and blackness fell.

"K-kyle?"

The boy's blood grew cold as the darkness began to engulf him. He looked up into the sky, where the moon had disappeared. He reassured himself that the moon was there; a cloud must have simply passed by. But even he knew that was a lie. The soil seemed to be lighter, the grass softer. It seemed that the totality of existence had been vanquished, except for his rhythmic shallow breathing. A million thoughts screamed at him from the depths of his mind _"Run away!" "Stay very still!"_, but they all clashed together and in the end, Kellan remained motionless, eyes wide open, quietly crying Kyle's name.

"Kyle…come back…"

The scurrying returned once more, amplified ten times greater than before. He could feel the legs crawling on his eardrums. He could hear the thousand tiny hairs brushing against his skin. The squelching returned as well, complete with more globs of the sticky white goo plastering onto his chest. The tears fell harder now, he parted his lips to sob, but they wouldn't move. He was paralyzed. Soon, hundreds of legs were scurrying across the soil, splashing him with their awful spit. Kellan was a mere statue as they molded him into perfection.

Only the thought of his brother prevented him from slipping into insanity, as the stickyness began to crawl to his neck. _Kyle is coming…he and Crushizard are going to stop the legs…he'll take this icky stuff off…we'll go home_. He stared distantly into the darkness; he could have sworn there was a faint outline of one of the legs. Then, the goo struck his eyes. He was complete. Blinded and mummified in the awful stickyness.

Finally, he could express fear. Hollow cries of help reverberated from his throat but struck a barrier at his mouth. More tears managed to well up in his eyes, but choked by the stickyness, they simply dissolved into nothing. Kyle was going to come…he had to! The legs began to crawl closer, shattering the unofficial wall that stood between them. They had slithered under him and with the support of hundreds, they picked him up on their backs. He could not feel them under his plaster, nor knew where they were going to take him.

Then, a new thought dawned on Kellan. The legs could be good; they were taking him back to Kyle. Of course, it all made sense. A delightful hilarity tingled down his spine. He calmed himself down and was patient for his reunion with his brother. Kyle was going to laugh so hard…

The legs walked for miles.

The wait was indeed a very banal one. Abruptly, they stopped. The stickyness seemed to be looser than before, most likely from all the sweat that trickled through his skin in the march. The legs released him and darted as far away from the boy as they could. Though they were hidden, he sensed their many eyes watching him. They wanted to make sure that Kyle came and Kellan would be safe.

A soft wind began to howl in agony. It echoed throughout the land, like the dirge of a banshee. The wind once erratic and chaotic then began to speed in front of the boy, taking its hands and gripping the edge of the world, ripping it apart at its very seams. He could hear the legs shuddering. Light began to pierce the Darkness. Two scarlet lights had struck Kellan, bathing him in gentle warmth through the chill. They scanned him carefully and then moved up to his eyes. He shut his eyes to avoid the brightness; the plaster was beginning to melt away until he could finally see once more. The scarlet lights vanished, and Kellan beheld "Kyle."

He could scream now. A great roar surged from his stomach, shattering the plaster on his mouth with sheer velocity as Kellan screamed for his mother. Burning in black flames, the supreme leg growled at him. Its scarlet eyes were locked onto Kellan's blue. The legs began to scamper away, fleeing the Darkness. All the boy could see was the leg's mouth. Overgrown with great manes of black hair, the mouth was wide open, dripping with putrid drool. Its golden fangs twitched, blood-red venom oozing from its sharp points.

It lunged.


End file.
